Many users depend on electronic mail (“email”) to send messages and share files. In some scenarios, users may add attachments to emails to share files with other users. Given the size of most attachments in addition to the fact that some users exchange a large number of emails per day, it can be appreciated that existing practices utilizing email attachments may demand a significant level of communication and storage resources. In addition, the use of email attachments creates complex scenarios for users when it comes to version control of shared files. For instance, it may be difficult for some users to identify the most recent version of a document particularly when multiple users are communicating individual versions of the document on different email threads. To address some of the drawbacks created by the use of email attachments, some users share data by storing files on a central server and sending associated links in emails.
Although some systems provide different mechanisms for sharing files with messages, existing systems are limited in how data associated with the files are shared. For instance, some files, such as a word processing document or an image, allow users to embed data, such as comments or feedback, within the file. When such files are communicated in existing systems, users are usually required to take a number of actions to download, open and navigate through the files to access or modify the embedded data. Given the number of steps that may be needed to access or modify the embedded data, existing systems may provide less than an optimal user experience.